


the Complete Picture

by satincolt



Series: An Album of Our Life [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Aziraphale and Crowley have a child, Aziraphale teaches English Lit, Based on a Tumblr Post, Crowley teaches botany, Don't worry it's not terribly graphic, Fluff, Hastur has pure imbecile energy, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, Misunderstandings, Nonbinary Crowley (Good Omens), Other, Pepper is too nosy for her own good, Pregnancy, The Them share literally one brain cell, Told from the perspective of the Them, Trans Crowley (Good Omens), Trans Male Character, updates every three days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-07-09 01:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19879417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satincolt/pseuds/satincolt
Summary: In which the Them go to college, encounter Professor Fell and Dr. Crowley, misunderstand many important details, generally cock the whole situation up, and it all turns out fine in the end anyways.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: this isn't meant to be England or America, really. Author is an American doing his best to recall his childhood living in England, but that was Many Moons Ago. Crowley is nonbinary and trans masculine, though mostly presents masculine as he does in the show.

**September 3**

The first day of classes at the top of the fall semester dawns hot and bright, the sun’s summery rays galloping through the campus with wild abandon. The students, still fresh from the summer, all dressed in shorts and sporting tans from their holidays, chatter and flash new tattoos and trade stories as they rush to not be late to their first classes of the year. Pepper Moonchild is not about to be the second (or third, or fourth) person to her first English literature class, but it seems Adam Young has other ideas.

“Pepper!” he calls from behind her, waving his arms as she glances over her shoulder.

“I can’t be late, Adam,” Pepper says brusquely, not stopping. Adam jogs up alongside her.

“It won’t be the end of the world if you are,” Adam wheedles, but Pepper is wise to him.

“Walk with me if you want to talk to me,” she says, climbing the steps up to the academic quad.

“I meant to ask you if you’ve had Dr. Crowley in class,” Adam says, glancing down at his phone. “I have him for Bio 203.”

“I haven’t taken a bio class,” Pepper says. Adam knows very well she’s planning on being a humanities major. “Ask Wensleydale. He might’ve had him.”

“But you’ve heard of him?” Adam asks.

“Of course I have. Who hasn’t?” Pepper laughs. She’s been hearing about the quirky, shades-wearing bio professor half the student body was hot for (male, female, and anything else) since her first year. It’s astonishing Adam hadn’t.

“Well,” Adam says, looking slightly put out. “I guess I hadn’t paid attention.”

“Everyone loves him,” Pepper says reassuringly. “Now, I’ve really got to get to class and so do you. Find me afterwards, we can talk more.”

“Alright, bye, Pepper!” Adam waves and backtracks to the science building. Pepper trots into one of the humanities buildings, hunting around for room 206. They’d remodeled it over the summer, and stairwells had vanished where she expected them to be and reappeared elsewhere. All in all, it contributed to her being the third one to class, much to her immense disappointment. The other students there introduce themselves politely, and the professor—Professor Fell—is nowhere to be found.

It’s only after most of the class has assembled around the large seminar table that Professor Fell comes bustling into the room, a beige blur surrounded by a cloud of apologies. Pepper’s initial impression is of a very polite bowl of oatmeal carrying a stack of books nearly three feet high. Then the professor sets the books down on the table with a resounding thud and looks around at the class, beaming.

“Good morning all! Welcome to English Classics, Literature 303. I am Professor Fell, I use he/him pronouns. How about we go ‘round and introduce ourselves—name, pronouns, class year, and your favorite classic book!” He gives everyone a very fatherly smile. Pepper decides right then she likes him. Unfortunately, Pepper is sitting at the end of the table, closest to Prof. Fell, so she will be last. She sits nearly bursting with excitement until everyone’s attention is focused on her.

“I’m Pepper Moonchild, I use she/her pronouns, I’m a sophomore, and my favorite classic is _The Great Gatsby,”_ Pepper blurts all in one go. 

Professor Fell smiles at her. “A wonderful book! One of the best-read in my personal library.” Pepper glows under the attention, then Professor Fell starts to hand out the syllabi and go over the course books. Pepper scans over the authors’ names: Oscar Wilde, Luis Negrón, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin… She looks up at Professor Fell curiously, as if trying to see into his head through his halo of pale curls. Pepper casts a surreptitious glance at her classmates to see if they’d picked up on the subtle theming of the class’s assigned books.

There’s another student down the table, diagonal from Pepper, who’s giving Professor Fell the same slightly suspicious, cautiously hopeful look. Then they notice Pepper and raise their eyebrows at her. She raises her eyebrows back. The student raises their hand slowly, staring at the professor with equal parts nerves and curiosity.

“…and the final paper will be worth thirty percent—yes, Dax, was it?” Professor Fell pauses, looking down the table at Dax.

“I was wondering, would we ever read Leslie Feinberg in this class?” they ask. 

_Ah,_ Pepper thinks. _A good way to test Professor Fell._

“Er,” says the professor. “As greatly as I would enjoy that, that is more within the purview of a gender studies class. Feinberg’s work is just a titch too recent for my syllabus, I’m afraid. I can, however, wholeheartedly encourage everyone to read _Stone Butch Blues,_ and potentially offer extra credit for it!”

Dax looks back at Pepper and gives her a one-shouldered shrug. He’s less forthcoming than they’d hoped. Clearly they’ll have to play the long game with him.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the science building, Adam is slumped in his chair in the middle of an auditorium, trying to figure out why all the sophomore girls are clustered right at the front, eagerly anticipating this Dr. Crowley. Then Dr. Crowley sweeps in from the back of the hall— _was he hiding in the projection booth?—_ and claps twice to get the class’s attention.

“Hi, guys, I’m Dr. Crowley and this is biology 203, Plant Biology, so if you’re here for 103 that got moved upstairs.”

A few first-years shuffle awkwardly from the lecture hall. Dr. Crowley watches them go silently, then perches on the edge of the desk up front after the door closes behind them. Adam scrutinizes the professor, starting to understand his popular attraction. He dresses like a slightly aged rock star, from the long red hair pulled up in a topknot to the circular sunglasses to the very fitted black suit (top two buttons undone and tie missing, of course) and black leather boots.

“Right then,” Dr. Crowley announces, leaning back on the desk. “Botany. This is the first lecture section, there’s a later one on Mondays and Wednesdays taught by Professor Ligur. You all should have signed up for a lecture section and a lab section; we both teach both, and you can mix and match. My lab session is Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30 to 5. Now everyone come get a syllabus.”

There’s a mass migration to the front of the room to grab a syllabus from the stack on the desk next to the professor. Adam makes his way down in a decidedly unhurried fashion, waiting until the tittering crowd of girls has evaporated. Dr. Crowley arches a single eyebrow at Adam over the rim of his shades. Adam arches an eyebrow right back. The corner of Dr. Crowley’s mouth twitches.

The class looks over the syllabus, filling the hall with the sound of rustling paper while Dr. Crowley sits quietly on the desk at the front. It’s impossible to tell where he’s looking, or if his eyes are open at all. Adam wonders if the shades are to mask a hangover—the man certainly walks like he’s drunk, a great exaggerated stagger as if he’ll tip over to either side with each swinging stride.

“Everyone done? Smashing. Any questions?” Dr. Crowley sits up a little straighter, clasping his hands on his knees. Adam watches the girls at the front twitter at each other before raising his hand. It’s only after Dr. Crowley’s inscrutable attention fixes on him that Adam realizes he doesn’t actually have a question prepared, and so he blurts out the last cognizant thought that was on his mind.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses indoors?”

“Ah,” Dr. Crowley says. “I thought maybe you’d be able to hold off a little longer. Seems I was wrong. Your name is…?”

“Adam. Adam Young,” he replies with the sudden sinking feeling that he might be in trouble.

“Adam, the reason I wear sunglasses inside is because I have an acute sensitivity to light and while I am perfectly happy to conduct lessons in the dark, you might not be so inclined,” Dr. Crowley says lightly. “Any other terribly personal questions for your professor before we focus on the class?”

One of the girls down in front raises her hand. “Are you married?” she giggles.

Dr. Crowley raises his left hand, wedding band flashing. “I have a two-year-old daughter.”

A boy in Adam’s row calls out, “did you ever play in a rock band?”

“I was the bassist for Queen,” Dr. Crowley answers without missing a beat. It takes Adam a good minute to realize that can’t be true, because he knows the last bassist for Queen was John Deacon, and Dr. Crowley is much too young to have been in that band, isn’t he?

“Any pets?” someone behind Adam calls out.

“Snake, two cats. Come on, is that all you lot’ve got? I’m used to much worse,” Dr. Crowley says, grinning.

“Are you—” one of the girls begins to ask, but Dr. Crowley cuts her off.

“Ah, ah, ah, you had your chance! Now you’ll just have to learn it the old-fashioned way, by getting me drunk at a department holiday party. On with the plants!”

Adam now understands why the majority of the student body is attracted to Dr. Crowley.

* * *

Adam and Pepper reconvene at the nearest dining hall, messaging Wensleydale and Brian through the group chat to meet them there. “So, what did you think of Dr. Crowley?” Pepper asks, slinging her bag into a free chair at the table.

“I understand,” Adam replies. “He’s hot. Not that I’m into him—I’m not—but the girls in my class really are.”

“Your heteronormativity is so quaint and yet so irritating,” Pepper says loftily. Adam gives her a halfhearted glare. “My English Classics teacher, Professor Fell, has set us readings that are almost all by known queer authors _and_ he had us introduce ourselves with pronouns,” Pepper announces at a volume greater than strictly necessary, considering how closely Adam is sitting to her.

“So?” he prompts.

_“So_ I’m going to try to find out if he’s queer,” Pepper says with a heavily implied _“duh.”_

“Why can’t you just ask him?” Adam asks.

“Because that’s rude, Adam. You don’t just go around asking people what their sexuality is,” Pepper says.

Adam grunts in response. He would’ve, if he’d been in Pepper’s class. Best to just get questions like that out of the way, in his mind. Then he gets an idea. “You could ask him if he’s married,” he suggests.

“I don’t see what that would accomplish,” Pepper says, checking the group chat to see where the bloody hell the other two Thems are.

“You’d find out if he’s gay or not,” Adam says with his own heavily implied _“duh.”_

Pepper rolls her eyes. “You are so hopeless.”

“One of the girls in my class asked Dr. Crowley if he’s married and he said yes,” Adam says defensively. “He’s got a kid, too.”

“That means nothing,” Pepper says flatly. “Gay men can marry and have kids.”

Adam squints at Pepper, who narrows her eyes back at him. He opens his mouth, then closes it.

“That’s what I thought,” Pepper says smugly. Finally, Wensleydale and Brian turn up and the four of the Them get to having a good lunch.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Them attend office hours in a further search for information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in the middle of moving right now and my new apartment doesn't have wifi so I had to come to a Panera to post this lol. Hopefully I'll have wifi when the next chapter goes up on Thursday!

**September 13**

Pepper is absolutely determined to find out—in a socially acceptable, fairly underhanded manner—if Professor Fell is gay. She bullies Wensleydale into joining the English Classics class so she’ll have more information to construct her case, and while she’s at it, she tasks Adam with finding out if Dr. Crowley is gay, too, just for curiosity’s sake.

“I thought I was the leader of the Them,” Adam whinges halfheartedly as Pepper gives them all their marching orders, assigning Brian to the plant biology class with Adam.

“You may be, but you’re hopelessly thick sometimes,” Pepper says perfunctorily. “This requires the touch of someone familiar with the queer community.”

And that is exactly how Pepper and poor Wensleydale find themselves in Professor Fell’s office at his next office hours, while Brian and Adam are furiously hunting about the greenhouses to find Dr. Crowley. Professor Fell’s office is cluttered in the cozy way of a bookshop forgotten by time and most of its clientele. Dark wood floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line each wall, with only a small gap for a window directly behind the professor’s desk, which gives him a distinctly ethereal glow as he sits primly at attention, smiling at his students.

“Now, what brings you to my office hours?” Professor Fell asks kindly. Pepper has a believable excuse ready to go, and Wensleydale has been instructed to sit quietly and scan the office for clues _as subtly as possible._ He is currently doing Pepper a great disservice by twisting to and fro in his chair, gawking with his mouth open. Pepper sighs in his general direction.

“I was curious about the extra credit you might offer for _Stone Butch Blues,_ and wanted to know if you had any other recommendations of books in that same genre,” Pepper says to the professor, pulling out a notebook and pen.

“Ah,” Professor Fell says contemplatively. “Fictionalized memoirs? Texts on the budding queer community of the late twentieth century?”

“The latter,” Pepper says quickly. It seems to her that Professor Fell is the easily distracted type who would quite happily go off on an extravagant tangent and forget the original question entirely.

He hums, rubbing his chin. “Well, there is of course _Rubyfruit Jungle_ by Rita Mae Brown which is both fictional and of the queer community in the Seventies. It’s a marvelous story, a coming-of-age tale in rural America by a gender-nonconforming lesbian named Molly.”

“Have you read it?” Pepper asks, noting down the title and author. She spares a glance for Wensleydale, who shrugs at her.

“Oh, of course. I have read all the books I recommend to my students!” Professor Fell says proudly. Pepper waits with raised eyebrows for him to elaborate, to give her something she can work with to form an opinion one way or the other about him, but the professor says no more. Clearly she’ll have to be more forward.

“I’m… trying to find a book I can relate to,” Pepper says slowly, feigning a bashfulness she long outgrew.

Professor Fell hums again, leaning forward with intent, but his round face remains understanding and kindly. “Any general direction of your relation?”

“Bisexuality,” Pepper says. “Female empowerment.” Professor Fell nods, but Pepper isn’t done. “Are there any books _you_ relate to, Professor?”

“Well, you see,” the professor starts, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands over his stomach, idly running his thumbs along his velveteen waistcoat, “I relate in some way to almost every book I read. Every shard of humanity in each character stirs a likeness within my own. I find books are a most wonderful tool for developing empathy in that way.”

Pepper nods with sudden understanding. “I see.” That sounds like a very ‘ally’ thing to say. Professor Fell starts in on a list of recommended books, scribbling them down in a very slanted cursive as he goes, and Pepper takes her time to look around. The whole office is stuffed with books of all sorts. There is a picture frame on the desk, but it’s angled such that neither Pepper nor Wensleydale could see it. Pepper does, however, notice a ring on Professor Fell’s left hand when he hands her the book recommendations.

It’s all going relatively according to Pepper’s plan, when Wensleydale opens his mouth. “Are you married, Professor Fell?”

“Dear boy,” Professor Fell chuckles, slightly uncomfortable. “Yes, I am, quite happily! In fact, our anniversary is coming up…”

“Congratulations,” Pepper says, folding the recommendations and tucking them into her bag.

“Thank you,” the professor smiles. “Do let me know how you get on with those books?”

“Of course.” Pepper slides by the next student waiting for Professor Fell’s office hours and waits until the door closes behind them. “Did you see anything?” she hisses to Wensleydale.

“He’s got quite a few books on prophecies,” Wensleydale says. Pepper restrains herself from smacking her own forehead in exasperation.

“Did you see anything _useful to our operation?”_ she clarifies pointedly.

“Erm, no,” Wensleydale says regretfully. “Remarkably impersonal office, for how many books he’s got.”

Pepper sighs. “Right. He’s married, but that doesn’t mean anything, but from what he said about empathy I think he might be an ally. But—and I do hate this term—my gaydar goes off like crazy around him.”

“He does seem _very_ gay,” Wensleydale concedes. Pepper’s brow furrows. This venture has given her more information, for sure, but all of it conflicting. If only she could see what’s in that picture frame on Professor Fell’s desk…

* * *

“I found him, Adam!” Brian calls from behind a banana plant, waving his arms. Adam jogs around the edge of the bed to find Brian standing there a few paces away from Dr. Crowley, who is seated very nonchalantly on a bench underneath a dark green canopy of tropical plants.

“Well done, you lot, though I did put the location of my office hours in the syllabus,” Dr. Crowley says, stretching his arms out across the back of the bench.

“There’s four different banana plants in this greenhouse,” Adam argues. Dr. Crowley raises a single finger.

“Not so! This is the only one, which you will quickly learn if you pay attention in class and come to office hours. Also, this is the only location in the greenhouse with multiple benches. Please sit.” He gestures to the bench across the path from him. Brian and Adam sit, staring at their professor. Their professor stares back at them. “Well, don’t you have any questions for me? Or is this just a safari?”

Adam seriously considers just telling Dr. Crowley the real reason why he and Brian are here, but he knows he would have to face the Wrath of Pepper were he do to so, and he’s in no mood to endure that any time soon. So instead he says, “I read about a plant called the suicide plant because it hurts a lot if you touch it. Is that true?”

Dr. Crowley’s whole demeanor lights up and he leans forward enthusiastically. _“Dendrocnide moroides!_ Native to Australia, covered in toxic stinging hairs that cause unimaginable pain. No recorded deaths from it, but plenty of urban legends Down South, to include one unfortunate bastard who wiped himself with its leaves then promptly shot himself with a revolver.”

Adam and Brian both flinch slightly. “You, er, seem to enjoy that plant,” Brian observes warily.

“Yeah, tropical plants are my specialty,” Dr. Crowley sits back a little. “’S why I hold office hours in the greenhouse. What better way to talk about plants than being surrounded by them?”

Adam nods. “So… what’s your favorite plant?”

Dr. Crowley tilts his head curiously, giving Adam the impression he’s squinting at them. “Corn.”

“Corn?” Adam echoes, thrown through several loops. 

Dr. Crowley hums in affirmation, crossing his arms over his chest. “Sustained civilization on several continents for centuries, stood up to fantastic amounts of human meddling in its genome, continues to sustain the economy of the most dominant country on our planet, and my husband makes a brilliant corn slaw.”

Adam shoots a glance at Brian, who is frowning slightly. _It can’t have been that easy, could it?_

“What about you? What’re your favorite plants? Come on, impress me,” Dr. Crowley says with a grin.

“I like lavender,” Brian offers helpfully. “Smells nice.” Dr. Crowley nods and turns his head slightly to Adam.

“I like trees,” he says lamely, having already spent all his creativity on the suicide plant question. Dr. Crowley’s mouth goes flat but he nods still.

“Well, I should hope you lot have more impressive answers for me come the end of the semester, else I’ll have failed utterly and completely as your professor. If you have no further questions about the course material, I invite you to scuttle off for tea before the dining halls close.”

“Thanks, Dr. Crowley,” the boys mumble in unison, seeing themselves out of the maze-like greenhouse at the clear dismissal. Brian messages Pepper through the group chat so they can reconvene and share information.

* * *

_“What?”_ Pepper nearly screeches when the boys inform her of what they’d learned. “He just _offered it up like that?”_

“Yeah,” Adam shrugs, nonplussed. “He did tell us he had a daughter on the first day.”

“We got nothing out of Professor Fell,” Wensleydale says as if that’s a victory. “He does feel awfully gay, though.”

“I can’t believe…” Pepper mutters into her plate of baked beans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO MUCH for such an amazing response to this fic! I really wasn't expecting it and every comment just makes my heart soar. I'm so glad so many people liked the way I write the Them; I was afraid I wouldn't get them right!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disaster strikes the Them; Pepper should've been more careful what she wished for. There's no way to un-see certain things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am once again at a Panera to post this, this time on my lunch break. Please appreciate my efforts

**October 7**

“Next week I’ll have my daughter here with me, so I want you lot on your absolute best behavior,” Dr. Crowley announces at the end of one class, leaning over the table in front of him, (presumably) glaring down all his students from behind his shades. The girls who continue to sit at the front of the class buzz excitedly with the news. Adam and Brian figure this is Something Pepper Would Want To Know. She’s developed a healthy obsession with Dr. Crowley on par with some of his more _enthusiastic_ advisory students, despite never having taken any of his classes. Brian and Adam were fans of his by now given his eclectic and entertaining teaching style, and his penchant for draping himself dramatically across lecture hall furniture to spice up a presentation about rhizomes or some such vegetal nonsense.

Pepper reacts in a predictably rabid way to the announcement of the news, bemoaning how ‘proper’ and ‘closed-off’ Professor Fell is. “He hasn’t even told us about his family,” Pepper moans. “Everyone loves to talk about their families.”

“He has told us about his cats,” Wensleydale points out. “Uriel and Sandalphon.”

“Yes, but we don’t know his _first name,”_ Pepper says pointedly, hammering away at her laptop.

“Starts with an A,” Wensleydale refutes, consulting his syllabus.

“Dr. Crowley’s first name is Anthony,” Brian pipes up.

“What if that’s Professor Fell’s first name too?” Wensleydale looks excited at the prospect. Pepper just shakes her head, more focused on the paper for Professor Fell’s class than the boys chattering about her. Finally, she hits the return key with more verve than warranted, and slams the screen shut.

“We know _everything_ there is to know about his literary tastes, which should be _very_ revealing—and it _is,_ to an extent—but we know nothing about the man’s personal life apart from he _has one.”_ The boys nod and shrug ambivalently. This is Pepper’s crusade, they’re just along for the ride and are now taking a good deal of amusement from her intensity about the whole thing.

“What if…” Adam starts slowly, a leaderly idea befitting the Good Old Days of the Them brewing in his mind, “we sneak into Professor Fell’s office and look at that picture you said he has on his desk?”

“Ooh,” Brian says, sitting up straight with interest.

“That’s ridiculous,” Pepper says, but it’s halfhearted. Adam can tell she’s so worn down by not making any progress through her methods she’s finally willing to try his.

“Let’s go tonight. It’s a Friday evening, all the professors are going to be out of here early. The academic building is still open, we sneak in now and hide out until they’re gone, then look at the picture. Simple. It’s probably his wife or his cat,” Adam says. Brian and Wensleydale nod. Pepper gives him a mildly disapproving look, but finally rolls her eyes in concession.

And so the Them pack up their things and traipse out of the dormitory’s common area, making the trek across campus to the humanities building that houses Professor Fell’s office. The sun is just beginning to set, casting everything in shades of gold, and the air has started taking on an autumnal bite in the evenings. All in all, it’s a perfect evening to not be on campus, the Them figure, which means all the professors should be long gone. Inside the building they encounter only a custodian, who barely notices them. Pepper leads the way up to the fourth floor, where Professor Fell’s shoebox bookstore of an office is tucked away at the end of the hall.

She halts suddenly as they turn the corner and get their first look down the narrow hallway to the door. The boys crash into her from behind and she hurries to shush them, for there is a thin orange line of light lancing diagonally down the hallway from Professor Fell’s cracked door. The students hold their breath collectively, going quiet enough to hear not only their own heartbeats, but the low rumble of male voices in the near distance. There are people in Professor Fell’s office.

The Them sink into a single-file line, padding with the practice of their childhoods as renowned troublemakers. They creep up to Professor Fell’s door and hear his voice, speaking softly to the other occupant(s) of his office.

“I wouldn’t want her to find out,” he murmurs.

“Oh, certainly not, she’d be bloody livid if she knew,” a second voice says, one that Adam and Brian recognize instantly: Dr. Crowley. Quickly, they duck around to peer through the crack in the door without being seen. Pepper tugs on their shirts to try to reel them back into a safe eavesdropping position, but they’re too transfixed by the sight before them.

There, through the narrow line of vision granted them by the door, is Dr. Crowley sitting on Professor Fell’s lap in the armchair behind his desk. One arm is draped over Professor Fell’s shoulders, their noses inches apart, each with a glass of wine in hand. Professor Fell’s free hand rests on Dr. Crowley’s hip in a decidedly inappropriate fashion, two fingers hooked into the doctor’s belt loop. Pepper then worms her way between Adam and Brian and sucks in a startled gasp of air.

“Reckon she’d feel rather betrayed,” Professor Fell says lightly.

“Oh, she’ll live,” Dr. Crowley laughs. “Tonight you’re all mine and she’ll be none the wiser.”

“I do feel rather terrible, leaving her alone on a night like this,” Professor Fell says softly, taking a drink of his wine. “It’s so lovely outside.”

“No need to moon about it, she still knows you love her,” Dr. Crowley says, then ducks his head to kiss Professor Fell on the lips.

Pepper tears herself away from the sight with a gasp, pulling the other three Thems along with her. They tear down the hall, thundering through the stairwells, until they burst out the back door of the building heaving for air.

“We shouldn’t have seen that,” Wensleydale pants.

“I can’t believe he’s—” Pepper starts, gasping for breath, “—cheating on his wife with—” more gasping, “—another married man!”

“That answers your question, doesn’t it?” Adam says, wheezing. Pepper gives him a haunted stare. They all catch their breath gradually, and once the adrenaline has faded, they stare at each other in confusion, uncertain how to proceed in light of this damning new knowledge.

“Should we tell someone?” Brian asks eventually.

Pepper bites her lip. “I feel like we ought to tell their spouses, but we don’t know who they are.”

“It’s not our business to tell anyone,” Adam says decisively then. The Thems nod slowly at the statement. “We just have to pretend like we don’t know.”

* * *

**October 10**

That statement proves to be the epitome of ‘easier said than done.’ In class, Pepper finds herself haunted by the image of Dr. Crowley kissing Professor Fell whilst the lanky botanist was slung across his lap like a giant boa constrictor. The flash of the white gold ring on Professor Fell’s finger seems hollow and taunting, Pepper’s mind stuck on his words. He was worrying about his wife even as he cuddled up with Dr. Crowley—and _damn that Dr. Crowley,_ for encouraging the whole thing!

“Pepper, are you alright?” Professor Fell asks, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder as the class breaks up into small groups for a book discussion. Pepper starts at the contact, then realizes she’s had a murderous frown on her face for the past several minutes.

“Oh—I’m, I’m alright,” she says hurriedly, forcing a smile onto her face. Professor Fell still looks concerned, but he moves around to another group. Pepper leans over to Wensleydale and makes like she’s conferencing with him about the book of the week.

“I can’t… not see it,” she whispers. Wensleydale nods silently.

“I can’t imagine how Brian and Adam are getting on,” he whispers back.

* * *

Brian and Adam are getting on just about as well as Pepper and Wensleydale. Every time Dr. Crowley chuckles at one of his own jokes, Adam hears the lusty chuckle he’d made right before kissing Professor Fell and he has to distract himself very quickly.

“Oi!” Dr. Crowley shouts at them, raising a piece of chalk threateningly. He’s been known to chuck the spent nubs of chalk at dozing students. “Paying attention? This’ll be on the exam.”

Adam sits up suddenly, doing his best to look attentive. Dr. Crowley returns to teaching, bouncing the little girl on his hip as he does so. He’s taught the entire lecture so far with his daughter Lucy clinging quietly to his side, looking up at him like he hung the stars for her. She’s got a mess of brilliant red curls and big blue eyes and is wearing a corduroy romper and, if Adam wasn’t so uncomfortable around Dr. Crowley now knowing what he knows, he would admit Lucy is remarkably cute and looks remarkably like the doctor.

The sight of the hot professor being so good with the cute baby certainly has the girls down in front distracted. Occasionally Lucy will reach up towards Dr. Crowley’s face or his other hand, curious about the words he’s saying or the gestures he’s making, and he will oblige her without missing a beat, hitching her up further on his hip so she can pat his cheeks and lips, or he’ll allow her to play with his free hand. Adam’s heart isn’t made of stone, and he admits it’s quite adorable. He’s heard Brian sigh a couple times at the sight.

The lecture wraps up and the girls flood Dr. Crowley, eager to coo over the darling Lucy and praise the doctor’s parenting skills. Adam looks on dubiously, wondering what they would think if they knew their beloved Dr. Crowley was cheating on his husband. Before he can slip out the door with Brian, though, Dr. Crowley looks over at him and beckons him with one finger.

“Adam, a word?”

The girls scatter, leaving Adam and Brian alone with Dr. Crowley and Lucy. “Just Adam,” the doctor says, and Brian shrugs helplessly, leaving Adam alone.

Dr. Crowley sets Lucy down on the desk at the front of the room and she immediately crawls over to the defunct microphone equipment at one end. The both watch her for a minute before Dr. Crowley’s attention returns to Adam. “You’re not in trouble,” he says. It does little to reassure Adam, whose heart is racing in his throat.

“Then why..?”

“I wanted to ask if you’re alright,” Dr. Crowley says, his tone unusually soft. “You’ve been distant this week. Haven’t been participating in lab or lecture.”

Terrible indecision battles in Adam like the forces of Heaven versus Hell. He could tell Dr. Crowley everything he knows right now, or he could lie and make a run for it. They are both equally terrifying and appealing.

“Just, er, sophomore slump, I guess,” Adam says, opting to lie and run. Dr. Crowley nods. “I’ve got to catch up with Brian,” he says, edging towards the door.

“If anything is going on that would impact your grade, don’t hesitate to tell me. My husband says I’m soft at heart, and I think he is, unfortunately, quite right,” Dr. Crowley says.

Adam’s mouth twists into an uncomfortable smile. “Husband,” he echoes. “I’ve got to go.” Then he bolts. As he power-walks from the science building, Adam finds himself pitying Dr. Crowley’s poor husband, who has no idea the affair is going on right under his nose. He pities poor Lucy, for being completely oblivious to her parents’ marriage falling apart right in front of her at such a young age. It’s a terrible situation, he thinks, and it’s wholly unfair that he’s now caught up in the middle of it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go from bad to worse for the Them when Professor Fell announces he and his spouse are having a new baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again so much for the AMAZING responses!! It's really blown me away and I can't tell you how happy I am every time I get a new email telling me someone's commented! This chapter also features [some wonderful art by my friend B of Dr. Crowley and Lucy!](https://www.instagram.com/p/B0dz4U0gqUc/)

**October 27**

The semester drags on miserably for the Them. Every class with Dr. Crowley or Professor Fell, they fear they’ll see signs of divorce, of marital upset, and they will be uniquely burdened with the damning knowledge of why. But the figurative other shoe never drops. The two professors carry on in the same way they have since the first day of classes, until Professor Fell practically skips into the room one day, glowing more brightly than usual.

Humming a jaunty tune, Professor Fell twirls his long beige coat over the back of his chair and plants his hands on the table in front of him, looking bright-eyed at his students. “I have the most wonderful news,” he nearly sings, “my spouse is expecting our second child!”

The students around the table break out into elated congratulations that Pepper and Wensleydale mimic hollowly, feeling wretched for the professor’s spouse more than anything.

“When’s she due?” one student asks eagerly.

“Ah; they are due in May. We already know it’s going to be a girl—well, assuming she is cisgender, but we will always be open to other gender possibilities—but her sister is going to be so excited to have a younger sibling!” Professor Fell looks positively teary with joy. “It was quite a surprise for us, our little Lucy was quite a miracle to begin with, but now to have _two_ children of our own…!”

Pepper can’t help but smile at the sincerity of Professor Fell’s happiness, though she also carefully notes his choice of pronouns for his spouse. The allure of the mystery died long ago when the Them stumbled upon his tryst with Dr. Crowley (and thus answered her question in the most unpleasant manner possible), but old curiosities die hard. It’s more of an idle evidence-gathering than any actual investigation at this point.

Still, Pepper messages the group chat to update Them. Adam idly messages back that Dr. Crowley has put on some weight and can’t fit into his ultra-slim suits any more. Pepper disregards the information in favor of paying attention to Professor Fell giving the class the outline of their next paper.

A slight buzz draws Pepper’s attention away to the pocket of Professor Fell’s coat. His phone is sticking halfway out of the pocket, and he’s just received a text. In the split second the screen is illuminated, Pepper catches sight of Professor Fell holding a plump, red-headed toddler in the background and the partially obscured words “I love” and “Zira.” _Who is Zira?_ Pepper wonders. And who would be texting Professor Fell something like that during the day. Probably his spouse. Perhaps Zira is a strange nickname for their daughter.

“…yes, we’re so very excited,” Professor Fell is saying, evidently having allowed one of his students to tempt him off topic again.

“Have you thought of any names?” someone asks.

“Heavens no, we only just got the news yesterday evening! It is quite remarkable how pregnancies can be so invisible,” he muses.

“Are we ever going to meet your spouse?”

Professor Fell chuckles. “Probably, if I can persuade them to actually dare step foot in a humanities building. My dear is practically allergic to literature.”

“What’s their name?”

“What do they do for a living?”

“You all are very curious, aren’t you,” Professor Fell says, shuffling the papers in front of him demurely. “All in good time, I suppose. I will do my best to have them attend the department end-of-semester party and then you can see for yourselves. Now, on with _The Picture of Dorian Gray…”_

Pepper wonders if she should perhaps tell Professor Fell’s spouse at the semester-end party. She quickly banishes the thought, though, as she’s not even supposed to know about the affair, and heaves a deep sigh. This whole thing started out as an innocent, fun adventure to find out if Pepper’s new favorite professor was queer. It had turned into a living nightmare of guilt and anger and resentment that was starting to leach into her papers, her words becoming acid towards the literature in some sort of hope Professor Fell might notice as he graded and feel suitably chastised. 

* * *

Across campus, Adam is wracked by a similar—if less potent—feeling, though it’s currently being overshadowed by his curiosity about Dr. Crowley’s choice of outfit today. It’s, well, Adam can’t beat around the bush. It’s a _dress._ He’d noticed, somewhere in his hindbrain, that Dr. Crowley had stopped wearing his tight black button-up shirts a few weeks back in favor of a black cardigan, but it hadn’t seemed a significant change. Now, seeing his botany professor in a flowy black calf-length dress with his suit jacket still overtop, Adam recognizes this as a significant change.

The rest of the class seems similarly confused, though nobody has said anything, and Dr. Crowley is teaching as if everything is normal. “He looks like he’s gained weight,” Brian leans over and whispers to Adam. “Look at his gut.”

Adam looks, and sure enough Dr. Crowley has a little gut he certainly didn’t have at the beginning of the semester. Just then, Pepper messages the group chat to tell them Professor Fell’s spouse is having a baby. Adam sends back his own, much less important, findings. He doesn’t mention the dress yet because he has no idea what it actually means. Perhaps Dr. Crowley is just… a crossdresser, or something. Or maybe it’s one of his jokes that he plays off with such serious determination, nobody can tell it’s a joke until he starts laughing. Adam waits for the laugh, but it never comes.

Finally, at the end of class, Adam dallies about with packing up his things, watching out of the corner of his eye as some of the Girls Up Front approach Dr. Crowley.

“Where’d you get your dress, Dr. Crowley?” one girl asks.

“Marks and Spencer,” he answers, settling down onto the desk as he usually does.

“It looks nice on you,” she says, clearly trying to wheedle more information out of the professor.

“Thank you. Lucy quite likes it too, she has a matching one,” Dr. Crowley says, pulling out his phone presumably to show them a picture of the matching dress. Based on the fawning that comes from the Girls Up Front, that’s exactly what it is.

“Ooh, is that your husband?” one of the girls suddenly coos, snapping Adam’s attention to them. Dr. Crowley gives a fond smile.

“Yeah, that’s Zira,” he says in a very soft and un-Crowley-like tone of voice.

“You two are adorable!” a girl squeals. “Look at you with Lucy!” The noise the girls collectively make is a spot-on impression of a flock of guinea fowl. Dr. Crowley chuckles.

“As much as I’d love to stay and have you lot fawn over my family, I’ve got a department meeting to head off to.” He stands and pulls the tie out of his hair, letting down coppery auburn curls the same color as Lucy’s. Even Adam can hear one of the girls sigh at the sight. Dr. Crowley gives a wry smile as he does his hair in a half-up half-down style and makes a shooing motion at the girls. They depart in a twittering gaggle, murmuring about the doctor and his daughter and his husband.

“That means you, too, Adam and Brian,” Dr. Crowley calls at them. They scurry off quickly to rejoin the other half of the Them.

* * *

“We know Crowley’s husband’s name,” Brian blurts as they all sit down for lunch. Pepper gives them a flat, unamused look.

“It’s over. This whole thing feels so horrible now,” she declares, turning back to her food. Brian droops like a wilted plant, thoroughly put out.

“I just thought you’d want to know,” he says.

“I don’t,” Pepper snaps. Adam and Brian trade a look. Wensleydale wisely decides to not involve himself, becoming highly involved with his plate of ravioli. “I shouldn’t ever have let you convince me to try to break into Professor Fell’s office,” she says tartly to Adam.

“How’s this my fault now?” Adam balks. “You’re the one who wanted to know if he was gay or not to start with!”

“Yes, but I didn’t want to _snoop,”_ Pepper defends herself.

“You just wanted to manipulate him!” Adam nearly shouts.

“It was _your idea_ that got us into this spot!” Pepper yells.

Adam glares daggers at Pepper. “You should learn to accept responsibility for your actions, Pepper,” he says coldly, then shoves away from the table, leaving his food untouched.

“Adam!” Brian calls after him, but Adam has already stormed from the dining hall. “Great going, Pepper,” he spits, then runs after Adam.

Pepper looks stricken. This isn’t at all what she’d thought would’ve happened. All she can do is stare into the empty doorway through which half her friends had disappeared.

“I… er… really should get going… lots of studying to do…” Wensleydale says quietly from next to Pepper, preemptively cowering should she turn her anger on him. She doesn’t move. Wensleydale silently collects all the plates on the table and slinks off, leaving Pepper quite suddenly alone.

It doesn’t take long for her thoughts to descend on her like a ravenous flock of crows, and so she quickly flees them too, retreating into homework where she can ignore the terrible feeling that she had just alienated her closest friends.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Other Shoe Drops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much for the love and the extra kudos and the comments on the previous chapters! They mean so much to me. The content of this chapter is not as lighthearted as the previous chapters and I have received feedback that some people may find it upsetting (Crowley is "outed" but it is not done with any malicious intent and he does not suffer any damages from it). Please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only and is in no way an accurate representation of real life. Please also keep in mind that I am a person behind this screen and I read all your comments and take them to heart: I will respond to valid criticisms, but rude and vitriolic comments will be deleted without question, as is my right as the author.
> 
> I am deeply disappointed that I have to include this reminder to be civil and not take fanfiction too seriously. I do not want to have to restrict comments to registered users only or enable comment moderation, but I will if individuals insist on being immature with comments.
> 
> Thank you,  
> Matthias (satincolt)

**November 18**

It takes nearly a week after class registration for the spring semester for Pepper to realize she’d signed up for another class with Professor Fell accidentally. She had no way of knowing the same thing had happened to Adam, seeing as they were still not strictly on speaking terms. She also had no way of knowing that if she had allowed Brian to share what he knew about Dr. Crowley’s husband, it would’ve solved the guilt that was eating all of them alive and ruining their collective fall semester. So all four continued in the same forlorn way, feeling rotted from the inside out.

Really, the whole spat within the Them was hurting everyone more than strictly necessary. Had they all been more mature about the whole affair, Adam and Pepper would’ve mutually apologized shortly thereafter and the Them would’ve rebounded quite nicely. But with both highly opinionated members of the Them maintaining they are both correct and that is a mutually exclusive state, the Them remains temporarily dissolved with each component member doing quite poorly. Without the Them’s (admittedly less than stellar) information-sharing, Adam didn’t think to tell Pepper that his botany lecture was cancelled, and Pepper never had the slightest inkling to expect what she came upon when arriving to literature class early.

“Hello little one,” Professor Fell’s voice coos from behind the cracked door of the classroom. Pepper freezes in her tracks a few paces from the door. “This is your Papa and I love you so much already.”

“Still too early for her to hear, I think,” Dr. Crowley of all people says in response, voice hushed in a way that makes Pepper feel inappropriate.

“Nonsense,” Professor Fell says, then Pepper hears the soft smack of a kiss. Rage boils up in her, startling her rational thinking mind into paralysis as her berserker mind takes over and barges through the door.

 _“You!”_ she shouts, pointing a finger at the direction the voices had come from. Had her fury not been so overwhelming, Pepper would’ve felt mortified at walking in so rudely on this intimate scene: Dr. Crowley sitting on the seminar table, Professor Fell standing between his long legs, their fingers laced together and resting on Dr. Crowley’s slightly rounded belly. Professor Fell stares at her with a deer-in-the-headlights look while Dr. Crowley quickly moves from shock to cold stoicism.

“Me?” Professor Fell yelps.

“No, Zira, she’s pointing at me,” Dr. Crowley says in an almost bored tone of voice.

“Zira?” Pepper echoes, then shakes her head. “Yes, _you!_ I know you’re cheating on your husband with Professor Fell, right when he’s expecting a new baby! You ought to be ashamed, you—you _homewrecker!”_ Pepper shrieks, unloading the full weight of her guilt and festering anger on the doctor quite calmly staring her down.

Silence falls heavily.

“Oh, Pepper, dear girl, that’s not at all what’s happening…” Professor Fell says softly, drawing away from Dr. Crowley. His soft and deeply regretful tone of voice undoes some of the blind rage coursing through Pepper’s veins. “Dr. Crowley _is_ my spouse. _I_ am their husband.”

“What?” Pepper frowns, feeling all the world like she’s just been thrown off a runaway tilt-a-whirl at a carnival. “How—the baby—?”

“Look, I don’t think I really have to explain to a clever girl like you how gender and sex aren’t inherently linked,” Dr. Crowley says flatly.

“N-No, of, of course not,” Pepper stammers. The pieces are less falling into place than being jackhammered into place with concussive strength. Her whole head seems to pound with the force of it. “I’m—so sorry—” she says haltingly.

Professor Fell approaches her slowly in the same manner one would soothe a frightened animal. “I’m so terribly sorry you came to that conclusion; whatever led you to think so?”

“I… didn’t think…” Pepper starts then falters, unsure how to proceed. “I…” Never before in her life has Pepper more acutely understood the phrase ‘I want to die.’ “I, er, overheard a conversation—you were worried about _her_ feeling left out, I thought it was your wife,” she blurts, unable to meet Professor Fell’s eyes.

“Oh,” he says with sudden understanding.

“If memory serves me correctly,” Dr. Crowley interjects, “we were talking about our daughter Lucy feeling left out that her daddies were having time away from her.”

Pepper really, really wants to die. Her whole face is aflame with humiliation, eyes firmly fixed on the floor. “’m so very sorry,” she mumbles.

“Er, it’s alright, dear girl,” Professor Fell says awkwardly, clearly trying to comfort Pepper despite being highly uncomfortable himself. “Let us put this misunderstanding behind us and proceed as normal, shall we?”

Pepper nods. “I’m—I’ll, erm, have Wensleydale take notes for me today,” she squeaks, then makes a break for it before anything worse can happen. As she flees the humanities building, déjà vu hits her and she runs all the way back to her dormitory before whipping out her phone and apologizing to Adam in the group chat. Adam reads the text immediately but doesn’t respond for several agonizing minutes. Pepper is prepared to unload all her embarrassment on him in a righteous text lecture, but then he sends back his own apology and a truce: _“friends?”_

“Friends,” Pepper murmurs as she texts back, then shares her shocking revelation. Of course she leaves out the bits where she made a complete bloody fool of herself, and the information sets the chat on fire. Wensleydale agrees to take notes for Pepper and they arrange dinner so they can discuss this very important news in person.

The discussion is, of course, a frenetic shouting session that quickly loses its thin veneer of control.

 _“Dr. Crowley is having the baby?”_ Brian shouts completely tactlessly, at a high enough volume that anyone outside the building should know as well. 

Pepper makes a frantic ‘hush’ gesture. “Yes! Professor Fell was talking to his tummy! He said it’s a girl in class!”

“But they’re prepared to accept the baby even if it’s not cisgender,” Wesleydale adds, grinning at Pepper when she shoots him an impressed, proud look.

“But how can he be having the baby? He’s a bloke!” Brian protests. Before Pepper can sigh aggressively at him, Adam cuts in with a very Pepper-like huff of exasperation.

“It’s called _transgender,_ Brian. Blokes can turn into girls and girls can turn into blokes and sometimes some people are in between and it’s all perfectly normal,” Adam explains in an academic sort of tone that implies he’d just learnt that fifteen minutes prior, but is very proud of himself nonetheless.

“You know, Adam, I’m rather impressed,” Pepper says. 

Adam winks at her. “I’m not completely thick all the time.”

“Nice to see my influence is having some sort of positive effect on you,” she ribs him.

“Can we come back around to how _Dr. Crowley_ is a _mum?”_ Brian shouts, breaking the moment. “Who would’ve thought? Half the school wants to get into his pants because he’s hot, but he’s _married_ and a _mum!”_

“I don’t think that’s…” Wensleydale tries to correct Brian, then realizes a larger problem: the whole bloody dining hall has been eavesdropping on this conversation. Brian’s broken volume button hasn’t helped. “I think the cat’s out of the bag,” he mumbles.

* * *

**November 19**

Indeed, the cat was so far out of the bag that one would hardly have been able to tell the bag contained a cat to begin with. A mere thirty-four minutes after the Them’s very public conversation, nearly every student in the school knew three juicy new pieces of information: the charming, portly Professor Fell is the mysterious unnamed husband of the hot, unavailable Dr. Crowley; Dr. Crowley is transgender; and Dr. Crowley is having his second baby. The Girls Up Front in Adam and Brian’s botany class waste no time at all in cluing Dr. Crowley in to the student body’s new knowledge when they present him with a small baby shower gift at the beginning of class.

“Alright everyone, let’s get plants on the brain,” Dr. Crowley calls the class to session, sitting on the table as usual. One of the Girls Up Front waves shyly at him. He pauses, looking at her curiously with a tilt of the head that says, ‘can I help you?’

“Congratulations,” she titters, leaning over her desk to hold out a small, wrapped parcel to Dr. Crowley. He obliges her, sauntering over with some confusion to accept the gift. He doesn’t hold the item up for everyone to see, but Adam catches a flash of pink.

“Ah. Well,” he says curtly, swinging his arms at his sides a moment before tipping his head back as if looking for strength in the rafters of the lecture hall. “I take it everyone knows?”

An uneasy murmur ripples through the class like a breeze through a wheat field. Dr. Crowley nods, retreating to his table. He draws one knee up almost to his chest, wrapping an arm around it in the most distinctly uncomfortable “comfortable” pose he’s pulled yet. “How much do you know? I want to see hands or I’ll cold-call.”

This is a very real threat from Dr. Crowley. Adam and Brian fidget guiltily, knowing full well they are ground zero for the information leak. Dr. Crowley seems to be staring right at them. It’s impossible to tell behind those dark lenses. “Gibson,” he intones. The boy next to Adam jumps. Adam flinches. That was a warning shot.

“I just heard that, er, you’re having a baby,” Gibson says. Crowley tilts his head, taking aim at the Girls Up Front.

“All of you. Spill,” he waves a hand at them.

“I heard from Ellen—dunno who told her—that Dr. Crowley is transgender and having a baby,” one of the Girls confesses. “Oh and also that Dr. Crowley is married to Professor Fell.”

“Kindly refer to me in the second person, I am right in front of you,” Dr. Crowley almost snaps. He cold-calls three other students, getting closer and closer to Adam with each call, and each offers the same information. When Adam’s name comes out of Dr. Crowley’s mouth, it’s with the same finality as the tolling of a church bell at a funeral.

_“Adam. Young.”_

“Sir,” Adam says nervously. Dr. Crowley only raises his eyebrows above the rims of his shades. Adam resolves not to rat Pepper out. He can’t undo a friendship truce like that so quickly. Adam shrugs. Dr. Crowley might or might not have rolled his eyes, but it seems more likely than not that he had.

“Brian.”

Brian tries to maintain structural integrity under the heavy growl of his name and he puts up a valiant effort, but crumbles like a seawall beneath a tsunami. “Pepper told me; she saw you and Professor Fell,” he cries.

Dr. Crowley hums, planting both feet flat on the floor again, clasping his hands over his abdomen. With the black-on-black underneath his suit jacket, it’s very hard to tell at all. “Now that it’s all out in the open, I might as well tell you myself. I would’ve preferred to announce it on my own terms, but Miss Moonchild saw to that,” Dr. Crowley says, a bladed edge creeping into his voice. He takes a moment to recompose himself, his hands idly rubbing his belly. “Yes, I am transgender. It is an _adjective,_ not a noun or verb, and I don’t want to hear about anyone referring to me as anything but Dr. Crowley, understood? And believe me, I _will_ hear.”

The room seems to chill a degree as Dr. Crowley continues. “I am married to Professor Fell. You have already met our eldest daughter. I am currently pregnant with our second daughter. I will not tolerate any _saccharine inquiries_ into the state of my pregnancy. You will treat me as if I’m merely a fat bloke obsessed with plants, who dresses eccentrically.”

Nobody laughs at the joke. Everyone knows it’s not a joke.

 _“Capisce?_ Good. Now spread that through your rumor mill,” Dr. Crowley barks. The whole class jumps; the Girls Up Front look as if they might even be trembling. Then Dr. Crowley starts in on his lesson, and there had never been a room full of more focused, attentive students.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANOTHER EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT: I've decided I'm going to turn TCP into a series! After this initial 10-chapter work is complete, the rest of the series will be one-shot vignettes, behind-the-scenes sorts of things, smut, and flashbacks to Zira and Crowley in college when they first met. Let me know if there's something you desperately want to see because I'm taking suggestions!
> 
> THE LAST ANNOUNCEMENT, I PROMISE: I will also be podficcing this work when it's complete! I've always wanted to podfic something (speaking as someone who commutes many hours a day for work, I love audiobooks), and hopefully others will also enjoy it :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Them attend the Crowley-Fell end-of-semester holiday party, Pepper finally catches a break, and all is forgiven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! This is my favorite chapter in the whole work (if you couldn't tell based on the length of it) and I'm super pleased to announce it has FOUR illustrations!! Three by my friend B, who did that lovely art for chapter four, and one by me! I also want to say thank you to those who supported me through the last chapter. It means a lot to me <3
> 
> Art by B: ([motorcycle crowley & crowley w/ beelzebub](https://www.instagram.com/p/B0tnrz2AJGY/)) (wedding - coming soon!)
> 
> Art by me: ([motorcycle crowley](https://www.instagram.com/p/B0ryoeOncie/))

**December 10**

“Since tomorrow is the last day of classes of the fall semester,” Professor Fell says at the end of their last class, “I thought I ought to invite everyone to the holiday party my spouse and I are hosting. You have been my favorite class this semester, and there are so few of you, so I can’t think of a better way to say thank you for such an excellent class.” He smiles round at them, glowing as they murmur excitedly.

Pepper smiles back at him, though guilt still twists in her gut. She heard all about the harrowing incident of Dr. Crowley chewing out Adam’s class about Pepper’s discovery. She knows how wrong the situation is, that she essentially outed a professor in more than one way, and can’t help but feel that Dr. Crowley must harbor some sort of dark resentment towards her for doing so. Once everyone has packed up and left, eager to hurry up and start wasting time before exams hit, Pepper dismisses Wensleydale and lingers to talk to Professor Fell.

“Pepper, dear girl, what can I do for you?” Professor Fell asks, ever chipper, as Pepper fidgets nervously with her gloves by the doorway.

“Thank you for the invitation to your party,” she says first. Wouldn’t want to appear ungrateful, of course not. Professor Fell nods. “I don’t think I can make it, though.”

“Why ever not?” Professor Fell asks, his smile faltering.

“I… I feel terrible for what I did to you and Dr. Crowley, especially. I’m so sorry,” Pepper says, averting her eyes.

“Dear girl,” Professor Fell says gently. “We forgive you. It was bound to come out at some point. Anthony isn’t angry with you, I can assure. We both understand that one has no control over the chattering mouths of others. Besides, my love has never been one to hide the fact he is nonbinary. He does wear dresses regularly. I sought his permission before announcing his pregnancy, too. We figured—perhaps incorrectly so—that most of our students already knew we were married,” Professor Fell points out. Pepper, never having actually taken a class with Dr. Crowley, did not know this. Adam had completely neglected to mention the botanist’s dresses to her.

“Ah,” Pepper shuffles her feet. “I’m… I’m glad, I suppose. I’ll see you at your holiday party, then.”

“Of course! We look forward to having you,” Professor Fell beams, stepping forward to wrap Pepper in a warm, soft hug that catches her quite off-guard. It takes her a moment to relax minutely enough to return it, and a further moment to allow the feeling to truly comfort her. Professor Fell squeezes her once, then draws away, giving her an affectionate pat on the cheek. “You’re a good student, Pepper. It’s been an honor to have you in my class, and I deeply hope you will consider majoring in literature. I would love nothing more.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Pepper says far more genuinely now. She half-turns towards the door before she remembers a question that’s been bothering her since October. “Oh, er, Professor?”

“Yes?” Professor Fell replies.

“Why does Dr. Crowley call you ‘Zira?’” Pepper asks, curiosity winning out over embarrassment.

Professor Fell chuckles and blushes, fidgeting with the chain of his pocket watch. “It’s a nickname. My first name is Aziraphale, but that’s quite a mouthful, and Lucy isn’t able to say it, so she came up with ‘Zira,’ and of course Anthony is a horrid flirt and it would take the entire forces of heaven to stop him from calling me that.”

“Oh,” Pepper laughs, biting down on her smile. “That’s a fantastic name.”

“Thank you,” Professor Fell says, now turning to his briefcase to busy his hands. Another thought occurs to Pepper.

_“A. Z. Fell…_ Professor, is ‘Fell’ your real last name?”

Professor Fell looks at her with a sharp, slightly guilty expression. “Cheek! Save those sorts of questions for when I’ve had a few, lest I change my opinion about you!”

Pepper laughs, taking her cue to leave.

Later that evening, her class gets an email with the official invitation to the Crowley-Fell holiday party and Pepper gets a message in the group chat asking if she, too, had been invited to the party.

* * *

**December 12**

The Them walk to the holiday party together. Pepper in a black sport coat with green corduroy pants, Wensleydale in a rather similar outfit but with a bow tie, Adam in a red button-down with black slacks, and Brian coerced into a blue button-down and a Father Christmas tie. They carry the air of being very proud of having dressed up in an adult fashion for an adult affair, even as they shiver their way across campus to the cluster of faculty houses at the far edge and deeply regret the oversight of forgetting real coats.

Professor Fell’s and Dr. Crowley’s house is a small two-story building with a warm yellowy light on at the front door. The label on the mailbox reads ‘Dr. and Mr. Anthony Crowley.’ Pepper rings the doorbell. Through the frosted glass in the front door, the Them watch a tall and dark figure approach with some hint of trepidation. Brian and Adam are forced to recall Dr. Crowley’s cold-sweat-inducing warnings and Pepper’s further stern coaching on the dos and don’ts of polite conversation with a transgender person.

The door opens. Dr. Crowley stands there in a red-and-black velveteen dress that shows off his very well-rounded stomach, his hair done up in an elegant chignon, towering over them in three-inch black heels. The Them realize this is the first time they’ve seen his eyes without his signature shades—they are the most piercing pale green, almost yellow, made sultry with black and red eyeshadow. He smiles warmly at them. “Come in out of the cold, you’re the first ones here.”

The Them shuffle meekly past the doctor, looking around the home with guarded curiosity. “Lucy!” Dr. Crowley calls into the house. “Come say hello, sweetheart!”

There’s a muffled thump somewhere in another room, then the sound of small feet pattering, and Lucy appears around the corner at the end of the hall holding a wriggling mass of cream fur nearly as big as she is. “Hi!” she chirps. The fur in her arms squeaks.

“Honey, put Sandalphon down, he wants to go hide,” Dr. Crowley says gently. Lucy releases the fur and once it hits the floor, it becomes vaguely recognizable as a very long-haired cat who immediately skitters upstairs.

“Bye, Sandy-fon,” she says as the cat goes. Dr. Crowley crouches down to beckon her over. She comes running and takes a flying leap into his arms; he easily catches her and stands in one smooth motion, propping her on his hip. She’s got on a crinkly blue taffeta and black velveteen dress which is now covered in Sandalphon fur. Dr. Crowley brushes off as much as he can.

“Lucy, these are some of my students,” Dr. Crowley murmurs to her as the little girl tucks her face into his neck, looking shyly at the Them out of the corner of her eye. “This is Adam and Brian, and their friends Wensleydale and Pepper.”

“I’m Lucy,” she says softly, offering a wave with her very small hand that isn’t preoccupied with petting the velvet of her daddy’s dress. Wensleydale makes an equally very small noise with which Pepper fully empathizes.

“Nice to meet you, Lucy,” Pepper responds. Dr. Crowley gives her a fond smile.

“Why don’t we get some drinks while we wait for everyone else?” he suggests, leading them into the kitchen. Much to Pepper’s amazement, he doesn’t seem at all hindered by the three-inch heels or the toddler on his hip or the baby in his belly, especially as he sashays past all the chairs that have been scattered about the kitchen. Behind the island counter, Professor Fell is busy preparing hors d’oeuvres and drinks, wearing a pale gold outfit paired with a frilly candy-cane themed apron.

“Hello!” he cries when everyone enters the kitchen. Dr. Crowley ducks his head to give Professor Fell a kiss on the cheek, squishing Lucy between them. It’s horribly domestic. “So good to see you,” Professor Fell continues. “Would you like anything to drink?”

The Them confer with each other through silent looks and Adam makes the first move, nodding confidently. The rest of Them follow suit. Professor Fell claps his hands, delighted, and pours four glasses of eggnog. As the Them accept the drinks, they can smell the alcohol. Dr. Crowley seems to notice their hesitation.

“Zira has a heavy hand when it comes to these sorts of things; he won’t be offended if you don’t finish your drinks,” he assures them.

“Thank you, Professor,” Pepper says.

“Oh, call me Aziraphale! The semester is over,” he waves a hand at her.

“He’s also already had two glasses,” Dr. Crowley adds wryly. “For this party only, you may call me Anthony. But know this: if you call me that when I have you next semester, there will be unpleasant consequences.”

Adam and Brian nod furiously and take sips of their drinks. Just then, Lucy wiggles and murmurs something into her daddy’s ear and he puts her down. She scampers off into another room. The doorbell rings, and Dr. Crowley excuses himself to answer it. Pepper takes a seat at the counter, content to sip her drink and make small talk with Professor Fell as Dr. Crowley re-enters the kitchen with another group of students in tow. These students greet Professor Fell enthusiastically with hugs, already on a first-name basis—they are clearly advisory students and seniors who have been here before. With their addition, the party flows far more smoothly. From some hidden speaker, Bing Crosby begins crooning his Christmas classics.

Pepper ends up next to a lanky beanpole of a senior with messy hair and a hearty Scottish brogue and she can’t quite remember his name, but it might be David. “So I heard you were the one who got all the freshmen in a tizzy,” he grins down at her over the rim of his glass. Pepper flushes with embarrassment and chokes down another sip of her very stiff eggnog. “Ah, don’t be like that!” he says, nudging her with an elbow. “Whole school already knew, it was really just the wee firsties that were titillated by the _news._ Anyone with a pair of functioning eyes and ears can tell these two gits are madly in love—talk about each other all the time, right?” David raises his voice enough so that it carries over the babble of the party very directly to the two professors, who are standing hip-to-hip on the other side of the kitchen. Professor Fell sticks his tongue out at David and Dr. Crowley laughs.

“Really?” Pepper blurts, unable to hold it back. Her embarrassed blush is worse now. “I couldn’t tell…”

David laughs louder than is strictly necessary, clapping Pepper on the back and nearly spilling her drink. “Oh, you see what you want to see! I think you’ve watched one too many soap operas, aye?”

“Aye,” Pepper grumbles into her mug, feeling properly foolish. She shuffles off to locate Wensleydale and have him talk at her about something meaningless for a bit.

* * *

Lucy pops back into the kitchen occasionally, sometimes to say something unintelligible but adorable before giggling and running away again. She appears once with a long-bodied, short-haired brown cat—Uriel, according to Dr. Crowley—who appears far more content to be held like a discarded sweater than Sandalphon had been. Professor Fell gently instructs her to leave the cats be for the party and she complies, disappearing with Uriel.

When Lucy toddles into the kitchen wrapped in a black snake three times her size, Wensleydale nearly screams and even Adam looks at the sight nervously, but the snake doesn’t seem to be attacking the toddler and Lucy doesn’t seem to be bothered by the enormous serpent.

“Lucy!” Dr. Crowley says sharply, standing from his chair a touch too quickly and overbalancing slightly. Professor Fell jumps up to catch his husband, supporting him with an arm around the waist. “How did you get Beelzebub out?” Lucy just giggles mischievously. “Give it here,” Dr. Crowley says seriously, crouching down to extricate the little girl from the snake. The snake—Beelzebub, evidently—transfers itself to Dr. Crowley and entwines itself around him. When Dr. Crowley stands and turns to face everyone again, they fall silent at the sight. Six and a half feet tall, pregnant and smoky-eyed, robed in a nine-foot onyx serpent and black velvet, Dr. Crowley looks like an ancient forgotten androgynous god.

Professor Fell is particularly entranced by the figure his husband cuts, especially when Beelzebub raises its head and Dr. Crowley strokes one finger down its back. “I love you, Anthony,” he says reverently.

“You’re drunk, Zira,” Dr. Crowley laughs, but ducks to give his husband a kiss regardless.

“You’ve got to tell us the story of how you met!” one of the seniors calls, fairly deep into his drink too.

“Act it out!”

Professor Fell bravely surges to his feet, the seniors applauding. Apparently this is a holiday party tradition. “It’s best when they’re both drunk,” one sitting next to Pepper whispers in her ear. “But it’s fantastic nonetheless.”

“We met in undergraduate school,” Professor Fell starts in the booming voice he usually reserves for dramatic readings of literature, “whilst on my way to class, I saw a redheaded beauty before me trip on the villainously uneven cobblestones—” he gestures to Dr. Crowley, who flushes but obligingly mimes tripping. “I rushed forward to catch them, knowing it would be an unforgivable travesty were such a fair specimen to be so injured.”

Dr. Crowley swoons into Professor Fell’s arms; the professor dips the doctor low melodramatically, holding him there with surprising strength, completely ignoring the giant snake wearing his husband. He looks up at their audience, rosy-cheeked, to continue his Shakespearean narration.

“And I quoth to this fair maiden—” Professor Fell pauses to hiccup, “‘art thou uninjured, dearest apple of the Garden of Eden?’”

“I was fine, of course,” Dr. Crowley takes over the narration. “Looking up at this blond prat who’d just grabbed me ‘round the waist when I really didn’t need any saving, I wanted to say ‘bugger off,’ but for some reason I said ‘thank you’ instead. And this prick took it as an invitation.” He rolls his eyes fondly.

“I inquired if this fairest creature would take a meal with me,” Professor Fell cries, returning Dr. Crowley to his usual upright position. Beelzebub wraps another coil around Dr. Crowley’s belly, anchoring itself further in fear of any more sudden changes in inclination.

“I said yes,” Dr. Crowley sighs, but the unbearably soft expression in his eyes belies his comedic exasperation.

“We dined at the Ritz—” Professor Fell pronounces.

“It was Nando’s,” Dr. Crowley corrects in a stage whisper.

“—And in those moments I knew I was completely taken with the wit and intelligence of this precious prize, and that I would live out the rest of my mortal days with them.”

“I was inexplicably taken with this twat,” Dr. Crowley says.

“And I with yours,” Professor Fell adds cheekily, turning Dr. Crowley’s face nearly as red as his hair. He swats at Professor Fell while the audience roars with laughter. Dr. Crowley hides his face with one of Beelzebub’s coils, laughing.

“And now here we are, twenty-one years later, with another miracle baby on the way and still madly in love,” Dr. Crowley says, peering over his snake to make soft eyes at Professor Fell. Professor Fell reaches up, cradling Dr. Crowley’s face, and kisses him tenderly, eliciting a simultaneous “aww” from all the audience members.

“Oh, tell us about this baby!” a senior girl begs when they finally break the kiss. “What’s her name?”

Dr. Crowley and Professor Fell share a long look before Dr. Crowley answers with a smile, “Eve.” The girls, Pepper included, coo adoringly. “We had always wanted children when we married, but were unsure if I’d be able to conceive due to being on testosterone for so long. Lucy was the happiest accident; we’d been ready to adopt when I found out I was pregnant with her.”

“Indeed,” Professor Fell adds. “We found out nearly two months into this pregnancy that Anthony had conceived again. It’s a rather high-risk pregnancy, I’m afraid, due to his age and transition, and it will be our last for everyone’s safety.”

“I’m more than chuffed with two perfect girls,” Dr. Crowley says proudly. “They’re truly cosmic gifts, so much more than I’d ever dreamed of.”

“I can’t believe your amazing body has given us two beautiful children,” Professor Fell says softly, rubbing his hands possessively over the taut roundness of Dr. Crowley’s belly.

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” he murmurs back, kissing Professor Fell’s temple, seeming to forget the dozen students watching this sappy moment with stars in their eyes and warm alcohol in their veins.

“Another round for the expectant couple!” a senior boy cheers, breaking the moment, lifting his glass to a resounding roar of agreement. Eggnog and brandy and peppermint schnapps flow freely, the party descending further into inebriation while Dr. Crowley looks on with amusement, eventually returning Beelzebub to its cage in another room.

Not too long after, Adam stumbles upon a bookshelf full of photo albums and all the students descend like vultures to a fresh kill. Professor Fell settles on the couch with four students crowded around him on either side, eagerly prompting narration for each picture. Dr. Crowley peers over various shoulders, swooping in and offering backstory to selected pictures.

“Dr. Crowley!” Brian calls, holding aloft one particular album. The doctor obliges, laughing when he sees the photo Brian’s pointed out. “You ride?”

“Past tense,” Dr. Crowley advises, holding his belly carefully. “But yes.” He smiles down at the picture; Pepper sidles over to take a peek. A tall woman in a black leather catsuit sits astride a red racing motorcycle, black helmet tucked under her arm, impossibly long and impossibly red curls spilling down her back and over her shoulders, dark crimson lips quirked in a dangerous smile, looking every inch the Femme Fatale.

“You look like Black Widow!” Pepper exclaims. Dr. Crowley looks completely different, and yet somehow exactly the same.

“Yes, that’s rather what I was going for at the time,” Dr. Crowley says. “I certainly did have fun.”

“Oi! I found the wedding album!” Adam crows victoriously.

“Bring it here!” Professor Fell cries, abandoning his current photo album in favor of reaching for the one in Adam’s hands. Dr. Crowley seats himself in Professor Fell’s lap and the Them clamber onto the back of the sofa to get a good look. The poor furniture groans under the load but nobody pays it any mind.

“Oh, you’re gorgeous!” one of the seniors sighs, tracing their fingers over the glossy image of the couple at the altar, in the midst of speaking their vows, their love for each other evident through the teary smiles on their faces. Professor Fell looks trim in a cream-colored tuxedo with a champagne-gold cummerbund and bowtie. He has the powerful, cobby body of a wrestler underneath his tailored clothes and Pepper nearly asks after that thought until she’s distracted by Dr. Crowley’s outfit. The doctor is resplendent in a long black Victorian-style gown with a cathedral train and silver lace, his short-cropped hair brushed up jauntily. Hair lace gloves cover his arms up to the elbows, the shimmering silver veil cascading down his back.

“Never seen a black wedding dress before,” one of the seniors murmurs.

“I don’t _do_ white,” Dr. Crowley explains. “Zira bullied me into silver, and I only allowed it because I love him.”

“You look so happy,” Pepper sighs dreamily.

“We were. We are,” Professor Fell hums. Dr. Crowley gives him another kiss. They slowly page through the photos of the reception, of their first dance, of the paparazzi-like snapshots as they climbed into the car to spirit them away to their honeymoon. At some point, Lucy materializes in Dr. Crowley’s lap, her head resting on her daddy’s belly and her hands fisted in her papa’s corduroy waistcoat, fast asleep.

Eventually, the grandfather clock in the corner begins to chime and rouse everyone back into awareness of the time. The students excuse themselves in groups, hugging their professors as they say their goodbyes. Pepper strokes Lucy’s child-soft curls as a goodbye, the little girl barely stirring in her papa Professor Fell’s hold.

“Thank you so much for having us,” she says, sleepy herself.

“Of course, the pleasure was all ours,” Professor Fell says, cheery despite his heavy-lidded eyes. It’s time for everyone to retire. 

The Them shuffle over the threshold, but Pepper hangs back a moment, turning to Dr. Crowley. “I’m really, deeply sorry for outing you,” she says somberly, recalling Professor Fell’s earlier assurances but wanting to express her regret nonetheless. Dr. Crowley looks down at her with a complex sort of half-smile.

“I wasn’t happy about it, but I forgive you. Besides, most people already knew. You and your friends were _very_ late to that party. I was more upset that it was the campus gossip; I don’t like to make a big song and dance out of it usually,” he explains. Maybe it’s the alcohol in Pepper’s blood or the time of the night or how lovely the party was, or all three, but her eyes grow glossy with tears and her bottom lip gives the smallest quiver. Dr. Crowley opens his arms to her and wraps her in a hug. “No need to cry, Pepper. There’s no harm done,” he says softly into her hair. She nods, pressing her face against his chest. He’s so very warm. After a moment, Pepper draws back and blinks very deliberately, squaring her shoulders. She gives Dr. Crowley a nod and steps over the threshold after her friends.

The Crowley-Fells wave as the Them head back out into the cold, calling out,

“We’ll see you next semester!”

The Them can hardly wait.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Professor Fell announces another surprise, and the Them get ready to say goodbye to their professors.

**January 27**

The spring semester opens with an arctic blast and a soggy grey day. Over the winter holiday, Pepper and Wensleydale had added Dr. Crowley’s class and Brian and Adam had added Professor Fell’s class, so now the Them share two classes and are guaranteed to get absolutely nothing done in either one. Professor Fell’s class—Queer Literature—is up first on that horrid Tuesday. It’s another high level seminar that Brian had expressed doubts about, but Pepper had strong-armed him into it, insisting it would make him more of a functioning human being.

The syllabus manages to be somehow fuller of more explicitly queer novels than English Literature had been the previous semester, and Pepper will have a ball adding every novel to her Amazon cart with relish later that night. Looking around the same seminar table as last semester, Pepper recognizes many faces. Professor Fell introduces himself in the same way he had for the other class, and has everyone else introduce themselves with pronouns. Pepper is very proud when neither Adam nor Brian stumble over that part of their introductions.

“Now, many of us know each other here, so this should be a cozy little class,” Professor Fell says happily. “In light of that, I have some news for all of you.” The students lean in eagerly. “Anthony is expecting _twins!”_

The girls burst out in excited cries, the boys thumping the table in congratulations in lieu of patting Professor Fell’s shoulders. He soaks up the ecstatic noise proudly, tucking his thumbs into his waistcoat in a distinctly pleased manner.

“I should also let you know that because of that, they’re having a rather rough go of it and will be departing shortly for parental leave. I will be taking my leave soon thereafter, to care for them, and you will have a substitute for most of the semester,” Professor Fell says more seriously. “I will introduce them closer to the time of my departure, but they are very well qualified and I hope you will give them the same warm welcome you have given me.”

“Is Dr. Crowley alright?” Adam asks, genuinely concerned.

“Oh yes, dear boy, we’re keeping a very close eye on their health and the doctors say they are doing fine, but would be best to ‘take it easy,’ as they say. I’m afraid it’s rather exhausting, bearing twins at 42,” Professor Fell says. His tone of voice is gallant, but the Them can hear the worry underneath it.

Professor Fell indulges the class in discussions about potentially queer historical figures and converses about the merits and drawbacks of reading straight characters as queer, letting them fritter away their hour with boisterous conversations. He sends them off with the reading of the week and quickly retreats to his office. The Them worriedly head to their next class.

* * *

Dr. Crowley is already seated at the head of the class, leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the desk in front of him. He might or might not be asleep; it’s almost impossible to tell. His outfit is far more casual than anything the Them have seen him in so far, a fuzzy black cardigan over a black T-shirt paired with black sweatpants and his usual boots. His stomach is absolutely enormous, nearly twice the size it had been at the holiday party; he looks ready to pop.

The whole class comes in quietly, similarly unsure of whether or not Dr. Crowley is actually awake and loathe to be the one to find out. Once everyone has taken their seats quietly, Dr. Crowley stirs, turning his head towards the class.

“Hello everyone,” he says, sounding completely normal to those who don’t know him quite as well as the Them do at this point. To Them, Dr. Crowley sounds tired, but is putting on a very brave face. “Welcome to Horticulture 200, where I will show you how to bully and cajole plants into existence while teaching you how they work. This is a bit smaller class than I’m used to, so I think we might go ‘round and do introductions. Give us your name, class year, and favorite plant. Eleanor, give us a start, please.” Dr. Crowley gestures to one of the Girls Up Front from last semester.

Everyone in the class dutifully gives their introductions, and when Adam and Brian both say their favorite plants are corn, Dr. Crowley gives them a wry smile. “Flattery,” he grins, “will get you nowhere, boys.”

Once the introductions wrap up, Dr. Crowley brings the class’s attention back up front. “You’ll have to deal with my staying here,” he says a touch apologetically. “I’m rather indisposed at the moment as you can see. My feet are so bloody swollen. Aside from that, I’ll do my best to set you up for a good semester, as I’m only going to be here through the middle of February before I go on parental leave.”

The class murmurs at this announcement, but not the Them. They already knew, having strategically signed up for both professors’ classes altogether to avoid the catastrophic communications breakdowns that had occurred last semester. Dr. Crowley launches into his introductory lecture at that point, going over different methods of horticulture through the ages and practical applications of those techniques. He stays almost perfectly still through the whole lecture aside from gesturing with his hands and using the laser pointer over his shoulder to indicate different things on the projected slides. His tone of voice is still lively, but Brian and Adam know this is not at all what Dr. Crowley normally is.

Overall, the Them’s first classes of the spring semester with the Crowley-Fells are subdued, to put it mildly. They discuss over dinner.

“I think those babies are sucking the life outta him like big ole parasites,” Brian says, stuffing creamed corn into his mouth.

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Babies aren’t parasites,” she refutes.

“You saw how he looked,” Adam says. “All pale and tired. His stomach was so _big,_ I don’t think stomachs are supposed to be like that.”

“Still doesn’t make babies parasites,” Pepper grumbles. “It’s just a difficult pregnancy, is all. At Dr. Crowley’s age, it’s considered geriatric.”

“Geriatric?” Brian asks, muffled through a mouthful of dinner.

“Old people,” Wensleydale pipes up. “Means he’s proper old for a pregnancy.”

Brian makes a grunt of understanding.

“I wish there was something we could do,” Pepper frets, nudging her cottage pie around her plate. Adam shrugs.

“Not really anything, I figure. He knows what he’s doing and he’s got Professor Fell to take care of him, too. We’re just students, and not even their advisory students.”

Pepper hates to admit that Adam is right, because it means she’s worrying uselessly. Useless worry always feels so much worse, so hollow, because it can’t even masquerade as being productive. It’s like throwing a log onto a fire expecting a good few hours’ burn out of it, only to find out it was just a log-shaped curl of bark that exists only to trick you and make you feel like a poor outdoorsman. Pepper feels like a very poor outdoorsman, indeed.

“Who d’you think we’ll have for a substitute once Dr. Crowley leaves?” Adam asks. Pepper shrugs.

“I reckon it’ll be a grad student, once who’s wicked nice and pretty,” Brian says.

Pepper squints halfheartedly at him. “Don’t be so straight,” she mutters.

“Probably one of the other biology professors,” Wensleydale says far more reasonably. “Maybe Professor Dagon? I think she teaches plant classes sometimes too.”

“How’s she?” Adam asks.

Wensleydale makes a shaky ‘so-so’ motion with his free hand. “She likes to give lots of homework, and doesn’t like to teach, but she’s a bit of a boffin about science.”

“I think we can deal with her pretty well,” Adam says confidently. “She won’t be Dr. Crowley, but she can’t be that bad.”

Unbeknownst to the Them, they would not have Professor Dagon as a substitute, and it absolutely would be that bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao I can't tell yall how excited I am for you to meet the substitutes next chapter! Also I've already got the next installment of the TCP series ready and I haven't been able to tell anyone anything about it (including the commissioner of the fic) because it's one big old spoiler for this chapter, but now that this is posted, I can confidently tell you that there will be a brand new fic up soon to kick off TCP as a series and that will be the birth of Eve and Lilith!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Them meet their long-term substitutes Professor Hastur La Vista and Professor Michael and come to the realization that it's going to be a long and gruelling semester without the Crowley-Fells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure I peaked with this chapter, and will never write anything funnier in my entire life. Hastur is a fucking gift to write, though credit for his response to the croissant vine goes to [LetMeBeBrave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetMeBeBrave/pseuds/LetMeBeBrave)! Adam is also a got damnb menace and I had too much fun with him and vines.
> 
> BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: THE SECOND WORK OF THIS SERIES IS NOW UP! Go ahead and subscribe to the series, An Album of Our Life, so you get notified when I post new fics for this AU! Also go and read The Smallest Miracles and meet Eve and Lilith!

**February 17**

“I am Professor Hastur La Vista and I will be teaching Horticulture while Dr. Crowley is out.”

The man standing at the front of the classroom is tall and blond and inexplicably wearing a trench coat indoors. He gives three impressions: one, of having manhandled the business end of a live wire; two, of not having been intimate with a bar of soap in quite some time; and three, of having very little self-awareness coupled with an extremely poor sense of humor. Someone sniggers at the professor’s name; his dark gaze snaps around the lecture hall until he zeroes in on the offending sniggerer.

“Are you laughing at my name?” he bellows.

“No, sir,” the boy says meekly. Professor La Vista squints at him.

“I do not like jokes,” he announces, leaning forward over the table at the front of the room. “Do not make jokes in my presence. Do not joke about me. I will not understand. That upsets me. Do not upset me.”

Adam tries very, very hard not to laugh and succeeds in sneezing instead. Professor La Vista glares at him suspiciously. Adam raises his hand.

“Adam,” Pepper hisses in warning. He ignores her.

“Professor, do you know about Vine?”

“I’m teaching a horticulture class, of course I know about vines,” Professor La Vista barks. “Don’t ask stupid questions! What’s your name, boy?”

“Brian,” Adam says. Brian gawps at him like a very offended carp. Adam ignores him too.

“This is going to be a nightmare,” Wensleydale whines. Pepper bites her lip in agreement.

Once class ends, Adam sidles over to the sniggerer and converses quietly with him out of earshot of the Them. When he returns to the group, Pepper immediately digs into him. “What are you trying to do?” she demands, crossing her arms.

Adam stuffs his hands in his pockets with forced nonchalance. “Nothing,” he says airily. The sniggerer walks past the Them. They all watch as he descends the lecture hall and marches right up to Professor La Vista, says something, and pulls out his phone. Professor La Vista leans down, eyes narrowed at the screen, clearly watching something. The audio from the phone is tinny at this distance, but unmistakable to any college student.

_“Stop, I coulda dropped my croissant!”_

“Adam, _no,”_ Pepper immediately growls. “He’s going to get _skinned_ because of you.”

“He nearly dropped his croissant. Why is that funny. That is not funny,” Professor La Vista says in that machine-gun way of talking he has. The sniggerer sniggers again.

“I’m not standing around to watch him get murdered on your account,” Pepper sniffs, marching from the hall in a fit of secondhand embarrassment. Wensleydale trails after her but Adam and Brian hang back to watch the fireworks.

Professor La Vista reacts very little to many of the Vines, which makes the anticipated fireworks highly disappointing. Once the Vine compilation has run its course, Professor La Vista looks at the boy, silent a moment, before scolding him with a probably-too-loud-for-the-proximity, “what did I tell you about jokes? I do not understand these videos. You are getting a zero on your first homework assignment!”

The sniggerer slouches off, shooting a venomous glare at Adam. Professor La Vista points a finger at the two, but mostly at Adam. “You. Are a ringleader. I’m watching you.” And then he leaves.

* * *

**February 19**

Professor Fell leaves earlier than intended, such that the Them are confronted with their long-term substitute for Queer Literature much sooner than planned. They arrive to class and are met by a severe-looking woman with pursed lips and tightly tailored clothing standing at the head of the seminar table with her hands behind her back. When everyone is seated, she gives them a stern once-over.

“I am Professor Michael. I am covering for Professor Fell while he is out on parental leave. I usually teach gender studies. My pronouns are she and they.”

“Good morning, Professor Michael,” someone down the table says. She nods curtly at them.

“Now, it is my understanding that you were to be reading _M. Butterfly_ and discussing that this week. Who prepared discussion notes?” Professor Michael casts their sharp, hawk-like gaze around. Pepper is slow to raise her hand, unsure how exactly to please Professor Michael. The professor nods crisply at Pepper then sits, looking at the girl expectantly. Pepper stands and delivers her summary of the novel, then produces her discussion questions. Nobody speaks immediately.

“Well?” Professor Michael says with an avian tilt to their head. “Who has an answer for…?”

“Pepper,” she supplies quickly.

“Pepper. Anyone have any thoughts about the embodiment of the Orientalist notion of the East as a feminine entity, and the Western self-production as a masculine entity?” Nobody answers the professor. They continue, “does anyone see how the book addresses historical notions of being transgender simultaneously with racial prejudice? Would anyone like to comment on the differences between transgenderism, crossdressing, and transvestitism in their culturally and chronologically distinct contexts?”

One could hear a pin drop in the terrified silence that follows. Not only was Professor Michael the embodiment of the strictest nanny they had all feared as children, but she had just rattled off a string of words with such a complex meaning that the students were not only struggling to understand, but struggling to even hear the sounds she had made, they were on such a different wavelength than they were accustomed with Professor Fell.

Eventually, one brave soul raises their hand. “Professor Michael…? Usually with Professor Fell we talk about the, er, presence of queer themes and the structure of the novel.”

Professor Michael looks mildly taken aback upon hearing about such pedestrian analyses of such a complexly layered text. “I see. Discuss.”

Slowly, quietly, with much trepidation, the class does discuss under the hawkish gaze of Professor Michael. There is no doubt in any of their minds that Professor Fell is the superior teacher.

* * *

**February 21**

Professor La Vista makes a fatal error at the beginning of his second Horticulture class, when they begin covering fruits. He brings in an avocado.

“My wife told me to lighten up. Try to understand your youthful jokes. I will tolerate jokes on one condition: that they are thoroughly explained to me,” he announces, hands clasped behind his back, oblivious to the bewildered whispers of _“‘my wife’?”_ between all the students. He does not address the lone avocado on the table. “We will begin discussing the differences between fruits and vegetables.”

All the students have noticed the avocado. Adam is staring at it with such intense concentration, Pepper fears it might burst into flame. She has already resigned herself to the fact that this class will be a moderate natural disaster, and she might as well get some popcorn ready. Adam raises his hand right as Professor La Vista picks up the avocado.

“The avocado,” he proclaims, and gets no further.

“Professor, is it fresh?” Adam blurts out, waving his hand. Professor La Vista squints at him.

“Reasonably so,” he says suspiciously.

“It is a _free shavocadoo?”_ Adam hollers maniacally, half the class screaming in anguish and the other half yelling along with him.

“Explain!” Professor La Vista bellows, looking very confused and rather frightened, which is because he actually feared he was having a minor stroke at that moment.

“It’s a Vine, Professor,” the Sniggerer pipes up. Pepper can’t be bothered to learn his name at this point. “It is a six-second video focusing on an billboard for a taco restaurant saying ‘fresh avocado,’ but—”

“Why did you say it like _that?”_ Professor La Vista interrupts.

“It’s kerned poorly,” Wensleydale interjects. “And the narrator of the Vine pronounces the kerning, like _free shavocadoo.”_

“I don’t like vines,” Professor La Vista grumbles. “I don’t like that joke. No more avocado jokes.”

The class mutters, but allows Professor La Vista to get on with it. He puts down the avocado and moves onto a different fruit. The class sojourns through legumes, berries, follicles, capsules, nuts, and schizocarps at a wretched pace, the students struggling to hang on to any of Professor La Vista’s dreadfully droll words and fighting against the soporific effects of his excruciating lack of any sort of presentation style. When Professor La Vista returns to the avocado, hardly any students stir.

“What is the avocado?” he cries, holding the fruit aloft.

“A berry?” someone calls out lethargically.

“A _free shavocadoo!”_ Professor La Vista giggles. The students stare at each other in abject horror both from seeing their middle-aged professor _giggle,_ and from the horrible usage of the meme. This is going to be a _very_ long semester.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll let yall speculate about who Hastur's wife is ;)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a regular Saturday for the Them, watching movies for homework and accidentally finding professors' Instagrams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for _Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda/Love, Simon_ if you haven't already read or seen it!

**April 20**

This particular lazy Saturday finds the Them draped about one of the dormitory’s common rooms, all attached to their various individual electronic devices. Wensleydale on his laptop at the coffee table, Pepper lying next to him with her phone above her face, Adam on the floor leaning against the arm of the couch and neck craned down to look at his phone, and Brian inexplicably upside down on an armchair and quite an impressive shade of red at this point. Nobody says a word aloud, though occasional forceful exhalations through the nose (that is what passes for laughing nowadays) ripple through the group as they share various internet treasures via the group chat.

Pepper sits bolt upright suddenly, startling Wensleydale and Adam and breaking the unspoken rule of silence. “Look at this!” she cries. The boys converge on her, all peering at the bright rectangle of her screen. It’s an Instagram page for user @mercurymephisto, whose bio is comprised entirely of snake and flame emojis. The name is simply “AJC.”

“I don’t get it,” Brian says first.

“I think this is Dr. Crowley’s Instagram,” Pepper says. The most recent three posts are all of plants of various sorts, but the middle image in the third row down has all Them squinting more closely at the phone. It’s a grainy black-and-white image instantly recognizable as a sonogram printout. The caption below reads “just found out we’re having #twins, going into hibernation now in preparation for not sleeping at all for 8 months #parenting”

“Oh yeah, this is definitely Crowley’s,” Adam says, knowing he can’t have been the only one that read the caption in Dr. Crowley’s voice. He reaches over Pepper’s shoulder and scrolls a little further down, tapping on a particular photo. _“Definitely_ Crowley’s,” he repeats.

The photo is of Professor Fell in his frilly candy-cane apron, evidently taken just before the holiday party. He’s standing in their kitchen holding a batter-covered wooden spoon, posing like a pinup girl daintily licking the utensil, one foot popped into the air. The caption is a line of seven red heart emojis and the hashtags “#holidayparty #househusband #hethinkshesasugarplumfairy” Below that is a photo that looks like it was taken on a train. The scenery through the window is a blurred streak, putting Professor Fell and Lucy sharply into focus. Lucy is sat on Professor Fell’s lap facing him, her small hands reaching up to grasp his bow tie, mouth open and eyes closed in a shriek of joy. There’s a little blue bow nestled amongst her curls. This one has no caption at all.

They scroll some more until Lucy stops appearing in the photos. The next one the Them investigate is a snapshot that was taken at an event somewhere. Dr. Crowley is dressed in a sharp black tuxedo, his glasses folded and tucked into his breast pocket. He has an arm around Professor Fell’s waist, who is wearing a matching white tuxedo. They’re both laughing, their cheeks the pleasant sort of flushed that comes with a few drinks. The caption doesn’t seem to match the photo at first: “just found out I’m #pregnant can’t wait to have a family with my wonderful husband, know he’ll be a perfect dad #gaydads” So they investigate the comments, where user @gabriel.c.archstone commented, “weird way to phrase a surrogate pregnancy…” and @mercurymephisto fired back, “not a surrogate, sorry you’re jealous x” Another user, @chameleon_ligur, said, “was this the uni 75 anniversary gala?” and @mercurymephisto liked the comment.

That must’ve been Lucy, then. The Them scroll even further down, arriving at rows upon rows of Dr. Crowley and Professor Fell travelling the world. There’s New York City, Stonehenge, Johannesburg, Beijing, Munich, Perth, Rio de Janeiro, and locations they don’t recognize.

“World travelers,” Brian says. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Look what’s cooler,” Adam interjects, tapping on a picture barely in frame at the bottom of the screen.

“Is that Professor Fell?” Pepper blurts, holding the phone a scant inch from her disbelieving eyes. There, on the screen, is a scan of an early-2000s instant photo, but that’s not the most shocking part. The subject of the photo is a muscular blond young man in a blue singlet, blood running down his cheek from a cut above his right eye, squatted deep in a ready stance with his eyes locked on an opponent out of frame. Below, Dr. Crowley has captioned it, “#tbt when my husband was a championship greco-roman wrestler #mcm”

“He tagged both throwback Thursday _and_ man crush Monday?” Pepper mutters.

“Tacky,” Wensleydale agrees.

“Are we not going to talk about Professor Fell _wrestling?”_ Brian redirects. “You can see _everything_ in that… sock?”

“Singlet,” Adam corrects. Pepper shoots him a mildly surprised look. “What? My dad wrestled.”

Pepper snorts, but not unkindly. They scroll all the way down to the beginning of Dr. Crowley’s Instagram and after a minor group panic attack at accidentally liking one of the ancient posts—

(“He won’t notice, right? He’s too busy being pregnant and all that, innit?”

“Absolutely. Too busy. He won’t notice.”

On the other side of campus, Dr. Crowley laughed at the unexpected notification on his phone and went back to his movie.)

—the Them decide to post up in the TV room downstairs and watch _Love, Simon_ for Queer Literature. They huddle together on the couch with Pepper’s laptop sat on the coffee table in front of them, the Bluetooth speaker in the hands of its traditional custodian Wensleydale. Pepper and Wensleydale have, of course, already read _Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda_ and are following the assignment Professor Michael set, to analyze the differences between the book and the movie. Adam and Brian, on the other hand, are loathe to do any sort of reading and are thus providing Pepper and Wensleydale with additional entertainment as they experience the plot for the first time.

“It’s got to be that blond one,” Brian says, waving his hand at the screen. “Everything about him screams gay.”

“Yeah, but it _can’t_ be that simple. It’s the other blond one. The total prat,” Adam argues. Pepper and Wensleydale bite down on their smiles.

“Cal? Or Martin?” Wensleydale offers.

“Martin,” Adam declares overtop of Brian announcing “Cal” with equal confidence.

“You’re both wrong,” Pepper grins.

“How can I be wrong? Cal’s the easy pick and that means he _can’t_ be right, so it’s got to be Martin!” Adam cries, sitting up enough to give Pepper a properly affronted look. She raises her eyebrows at him, prompting him for something more than a flimsy justification. Adam sighs, rolling his eyes dramatically and putting on a very put-upon voice. “It would make sense for it to be Martin because of internalized homophobia, which is a common trope in queer media,” he intones.

“And?” Pepper pushes just a little bit further, knowing full well she’s taking the mickey.

“And it’s harmful,” Adam says. “Happy? He’s gay and he doesn’t like it so he’s being mean.”

“Better,” Pepper says smugly. “But you’re still wrong, because why would Martin be blackmailing Simon with his own emails that he already knew about?”

“That’s why it’s Cal,” Brian blurts. “He’s gayer than Professor Fell, I just know it.”

Wensleydale lets Brian savor that fleeting taste of victory for a moment before slyly adding, “but what about when Blue mentioned wanting white to not be the default?”

Brian’s face crumples in concentration. “White person could say that,” he says, but his tone indicates even he doesn’t really believe that. Wensleydale grins at him. “Stop smiling like that, you’re making me doubt myself!” Wensleydale laughs and shares a look with Pepper. The carnival scene is going to be _good._

And it is good, but also terrible. The Knowledgeable Two complain endlessly about how the scene diverges wildly from the book—“ _and the book was so much better, this is frankly embarrassing to watch!”_ —but when Bram boards the Ferris wheel next to Simon instead of either Martin or Cal, both Adam and Brian howl.

“That’s not fair!” Brian shouts, like he’s refuting a referee’s bad call in a football match. “That came out of nowhere!”

“We haven’t even seen the bloke before!” Adam yells. Wensleydale and Pepper laugh and laugh.

“It’s in the book! The clues are there!” Pepper shouts over them. “You’ve just got to _read,”_ she insists.

“I’ll read _you,_ Pepper!” Adam says before throwing a couch pillow at her. It bowls her over completely with a startled shout of laughter, then comes flying right back at him.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” she hollers, leaping to her feet atop the cushions and pointing down at him.

 _“You_ don’t make any sense!” Brian cries, charging into the fight by crashing into the backs of Pepper’s knees and inciting total war until an upperclassman comes and crossly tells them to keep it all down.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to give a BIG, SAPPY THANK YOU to my friend B, aka LetMeBeBrave here on Ao3, for being my illustrator and unofficial beta-reader and cheerleader and sounding board through this whole fic! I really couldn't have done it without you & you were there for me when things got rough with word count and negative feedback; I'm so grateful for all your support throughout this story <3
> 
> And a further thank you to everyone who lent their support through kudos and comments and reaching out to me on other platforms!! Yall rock and you really kept the love alive for this story!! <3 <3

**May 10**

To: QUEERLIT303[students]; HORT225[students]; ENGLIT 202[students]; VASCSEM380[students]; _and three others_

CC: Crowley, Anthony [acrowley@tpng.edu]; Fell, Aziraphale [afell@tpng.edu]

Subject: Meet Our New Daughters!

Dearest Students,

We sincerely hope you have had enjoyable spring semesters, and apologize again for being away for so long. Our newest daughters, Lilith and Eve, were born on May 1st at 11am and both are doing extraordinarily well. Anthony is recovering well, though both of us are wanting for sleep! We will visit the greenhouses on the first day of reading period (Wednesday, May 18th) at lunch and you are all cordially invited to join us to meet our daughters!

Warmest regards,

Aziraphale & Anthony

_1 attachment: newborns_lilith_and_eve.jpg_

**May 18**

The Them make their way to the greenhouses at noon sharp, joining up with several other students they recognize from their classes on the way. Brian and Adam lead the group through the labyrinthine buildings until they arrive at the banana plant where Dr. Crowley typically holds his office hours. There’s already a small knot of people clustered around one of the benches. Dr. Crowley and Professor Fell are seated in the middle of it all, a baby stroller off to the side. Each professor has a bundle of cloth in his arms, and several students are cooing over the little bundles. They press in close, peering at the babies.

“Yes, they’re identical twins,” Professor Fell is saying proudly. “This one is Eve—”

“That’s Lilith, angel,” Dr. Crowley corrects gently. _“This_ is Eve.”

“Ah, of course,” Professor Fell chuckles. “This is Lilith and that is Eve. Lilith is older by about fifteen minutes.”

“They’re so cute,” Pepper chimes in. Both babies are pudgy little things, with fat rosy cheeks and rosebud lips and big blue eyes. They both have the faintest wisps of white-blonde hair like Professor Fell’s; they look like infant cherubs.

“They look like you, Professor,” someone says to Professor Fell. He beams at them.

“They do, don’t they?” he agrees, the love and pride nearly overflowing in his voice. Dr. Crowley gives him a soft smile.

“Lucy is around here somewhere,” he says, looking up from the baby in his husband’s arms to crane his head up and try to spot his toddler somewhere amongst the foliage. “Lucy!” he calls.

There’s a faint crashing noise in the distance, the sound of a small body running through plant matter. Then Lucy bursts out of a patch of ferns and bounds over to her daddy. “Hi!” she says breathlessly.

“Oh, look at what you’ve done to your dress,” Dr. Crowley _tsks,_ brushing the bits of leaf and mulch off Lucy’s pale blue dress. She pouts a moment, then attempts to crawl into his lap overtop the baby. “What did I tell you about lap time with the babies?” he asks sternly.

Lucy backs down, holding her hands in front of her and bowing her head. “I gotta ask,” she says quietly, casting a pleading look through her eyelashes at Dr. Crowley. “Daddy?”

Dr. Crowley crumbles, shifting Eve enough to free up one leg for Lucy. “C’mere,” he pats his thigh. She clambers up into his lap adeptly, immediately reaching out for Eve. Dr. Crowley obliges, allowing Lucy to hold her baby sister while still keeping a careful hand on the infant.

“She loves her sisters,” he looks up and explains to the students watching the whole exchange with rapturous expressions. “Even though I have to remind her five times a day they are not dolls and do not go in the toy box, nor she cannot put stickers on their heads.”

The students all laugh. Then Pepper remembers something.

“Oh, professors, we brought something for Eve and Lilith,” she says, turning to Wensleydale and holding out her hands. Wensleydale fumbles with his messenger bag for a moment, then produces two small wrapped presents, the paper around them covered in small silver stars. “They’re from all of us, but Adam did the actual painting bits,” she explains.

Dr. Crowley and Professor Fell unwrap the presents to find two infant hats. Professor Fell is holding the one for Eve, adorned with small painted apples and her name in fine (if slightly wobbly) print. Dr. Crowley has the one for Lilith, covered with multicolored stars.

“They’re _lovely,_ thank you so very much,” Professor Fell says earnestly, reaching over to put the correct cap on the correct baby. Dr. Crowley does the same, smoothing the fleecy edges over Lilith’s brow.

“Has anyone else met them yet? Or are we the first?” Brian asks eagerly.

Dr. Crowley laughs. “We already had our friends round for dinner to introduce them. It was quite a party. The girls were well-behaved—”

“They are unusually well-behaved for newborns; so unlike Lucy—she was a hellion! Still is,” Professor Fell adds quickly.

“—and Lucy,” Dr. Crowley resumes, looking down at his oldest daughter rather pointedly, “did her neat little party trick with Beelzebub again, despite a new child-proof lock on the cage.” Lucy looks up at her daddy and beams at him with Professor Fell’s smile, completely unapologetic. One might even say she looked _proud_ of her accomplishment.

“Yes, It was quite a show,” Professor Fell says. “We were sitting down to eat with Hastur and Michael and Ligur and Eric, and about halfway through a lovely meal of peppercorn beef tenderloin with roasted Brussels sprouts and a pomegranate and arugula salad, which paired quite nicely with a rosé…”

“You’re getting off topic, angel,” Dr. Crowley reminds his husband gently.

“Right, sorry,” Professor Fell chuckles. “Where was I? Oh yes, we were midway through the meal when Hastur got up to get some more water from the kitchen. Lucy had excused herself from the table a while ago at this point, and we’d assumed she’d put herself to bed.”

“We were wrong,” Dr. Crowley says flatly. “She was asleep, but not in bed.”

“We only found this out when Hastur started shrieking at the top of his lungs,” Professor Fell says with some alarm; clearly the event had left an impression. “We all bolted into the kitchen to see what was the matter—here I was, thinking something had caught on fire or there was an animal or a burglar in the house.”

“There was an animal,” Dr. Crowley says. “We rushed into the kitchen to find Lucy asleep with Beelzebub right in the middle of the floor. She was using the snake as a bed, pillow, and blanket, and I can’t believe the things that snake lets her do. Of course, Hastur had no idea we had a snake or that our toddler would be using it as a good place to take a night’s rest, so he naturally started screeching like a little girl.”

“The poor fellow was in utter hysterics,” Professor Fell says pityingly. “He woke Lucy up and startled Beelzebub, who attempted to escape, and I’m sure the sight of a nine-foot black python moving at considerable speed did nothing to calm him down.”

“Michael had to slap him to shut him up,” Dr. Crowley finishes bluntly, and the students laugh. The Them can all too easily picture Professor La Vista screeching hysterically at the sight of Beelzebub, who is admittedly a very alarming thing to be confronted with when least expected, especially when paired with a toddler. There are some things that one never expects to see together. Though they also note the inclusion of Professors Michael and La Vista in the same sentence, curiosity buzzing in their heads.

Pepper trades a glance with Adam, silently asking if he’s wondering the same thing she is. He nods at her.

“Are Professor Michael and Professor La Vista married?” she asks, having well learned her lesson.

“Yes,” Professor Fell answers. “They do make a rather unexpected couple, don’t they?”

“Rather,” she agrees. Dr. Crowley gives her a knowing look over the top of his glasses and winks at her. She grins guiltily.

“Well, It has been lovely visiting with you all,” Professor Fell announces then in a tone that signals the meet-and-greet is at an end. “We have lunch plans that we just can’t miss, and the girls are ready for their afternoon naps.”

The students chorus their goodbyes, trickling away in individuals and pairs for their own lunch plans. The Them hang back a moment longer.

“Professor?” Pepper asks as Professor Fell is tucking Eve into the baby stroller. He looks up at her with raised eyebrows. “I declared my major in literature this semester,” she says proudly.

Professor Fell’s face erupts into a wide, joyous smile. “Oh, how wonderful! I’m so glad you decided to join our little department.”

“I am too,” Pepper grins back. “I’m going to double-major actually, in Women’s and Gender Studies too. Professor Michael is… er, stiff, but I like what she talks about.”

“Yes, gender studies is quite the fascinating field! I do enjoy talking about it with Michael regularly, shame I can never rope Anthony into those conversations,” he says with a sideways glance at his husband.

“I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, I have no interest in the hoity-toity academic ramblings of being nonbinary,” Dr. Crowley says in a rather tired voice. “It’s just a part of who I am, not the entirety, and I don’t seek to dissect it.”

“Yes, dear,” Professor Fell sing-songs, then finishes settling the babies into the stroller. “Well then, Pepper, I suppose I’ll be seeing you in the fall! Until then, study hard for your exams and have a wonderful summer holiday.”

“Same to you, Professor. See you in the fall,” Pepper says earnestly, and she really couldn’t wait for the next first day of the fall semester.

**Author's Note:**

> I am always accepting (and super appreciative) of extra kudos in the form of "<3" comments!! They mean a lot to me!
> 
> Come talk to me about TCP on Instagram (@satincolt) or Twitter ([@satincolt](https://twitter.com/satincolt)) I'm always taking suggestions for other vignettes you'd like to see in the series (An Album of Our Life)! Thanks for coming on this loony, fluffy adventure with me!


End file.
